The Look of Love (24 page)

By the time she walked out, she spied Gunnar walking out the back door with Shay. Could this day get any worse?

* * * *

Gunnar had made the mistake of asking Shay where she wanted to go for lunch. Little had he known she would ask him to take her to a restaurant in Hampton.

“We couldn’t have gone to a barbecue place in Virginia Beach?” Gunnar asked as he held out Shay’s chair.

“I love this place.” Shay sat down and scanned the customers around them. She pushed her glasses up her nose. “Besides, you have to realize that when you roll with me I only want the best.”

Gunnar nodded but said nothing. He would wait to see if Shay would say something first about her tardiness, her absences, and her need to wear sunglasses all the time.

“For as far as I drove on icy roads, this place had better be better than--”

“Sex?” Shay winked.

“I was going to say the barbeque place off Princess Anne Road. You like going to the sex angle a lot, don’t you?” Gunnar kept his stare on Shay as she crossed her legs and returned his look with a more seductive one.

“It works for me.” She ran her tongue over her lips.

“It doesn’t work for me, so you can drop it. I’m taking you to lunch as a friend. I want to get to know you.”

“Oh, honey, there are other ways you can get to know me.” Shay put her hand on his thigh and crept it up to his crotch.

Fed up with her antics, Gunnar grabbed her hand, placed it on top of the table, and left his hand on top of hers to keep it still. “I’m not sure what kind of game you’re playing, but I don’t want any part of it. I think I’ve made myself pretty clear. If you keep this up, I’ll stop this lunch right now, understand?”

The smile dripped from Shay’s face. She snatched her hand from under his. When the waiter came with their menus, she grabbed it out of his hand. Gunnar showed a bit more tact and thanked the young man. They gave him their drink orders. With the distraction gone, the silence that hung between them felt eerie.

Deciding to break the ice, Gunnar asked, “How did you get started doing hair?”

Shay glared at him over her menu and dropped her gaze back to it without answering him.

“Okay, do you have any children?”

He heard Shay smacking her lips behind the menu wall she had erected between them. He put a finger at the top of her menu and pulled it down so that he could see her face.

“I’m assuming you’re not married. Are you seeing someone?” he asked, desperate to open up any conversation.

“You don’t care. You’re only here because Queen Elizabeth made you.” Shay slammed her menu closed and left it on the table.

The waiter returned and took their orders, although for a moment, Gunnar thought Shay would give up the lunch and demand to be taken back to the salon.

“I do care. I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t. I would think working with me you would know that. So can we start over?” When Shay didn’t speak, Gunnar continued. “How did you get started doing hair?”

Shay let out a long sigh. “I hated school.”

“That’s something we have in common.” Gunnar smiled to let her know he meant that sincerely. He wanted to show her he could be on her side if she would allow him to get close to her.

“I didn’t want to do the college thing when I graduated. Except for working in a bank, it seemed like you had to have a college degree to get a high-paying job. So I first went to school for nursing.”

Gunnar felt his eyes go wide at that bit of news. “Really? You hated school and you went directly into nursing school?”

Shay chuckled. “Yeah. Not one of my best decisions. I dropped out after a month. But I didn’t learn my lesson, because I immediately enrolled in school for physical therapy. I figured out quick that I didn’t like helping sick people.”

“What clued you in to that?”

“I threw up on a patient when I saw his burn scars.”

Gunnar tried holding back his laughter, but he couldn’t stop himself.

Even Shay had to laugh at it. “I know. I felt so stupid. A friend of mine told me that I could do hair and makeup really well. I had a YouTube channel for a while when I was transitioning from relaxed to natural.”

Gunnar nodded, knowing that she meant she’d transitioned from getting her hair chemically relaxed on a regular basis to her hair’s natural, curly state. If asked, he preferred women with their real hair. He enjoyed the texture, the softness, the curls.

“So I went to cosmetology school. As soon as I got that certificate, I went door to door looking for a job. Queen hired me on the spot. She said she liked my vibe and energy. I told her I liked getting paid. It was match made in heaven.” Shay cackled and took a drink of her sweetened iced tea.

Gunnar wanted to tell Shay that getting paid meant she needed to come to work and when she came to work, to be there on time. As he thought it, he could almost feel his mother kicking him under the table to behave himself.

Lunch came fairly quickly. Although Gunnar had hated the drive, he did enjoy the North Carolina-style barbeque sandwich and coleslaw he ordered. It still didn’t justify traveling so far for this one meal.

“So any kids?” Gunnar asked as he downed the rest of his crinkle-cut fries.

Chuck would have hated to see him ingest a meal like this. For that reason, he dipped his next fry in a vat of homemade ketchup before popping it into his mouth.

Shay shook her head. “Nah.”

“You want any?”

She cut her gaze up at him. “Are you offering?” Before Gunnar could call her on her heavy-handed flirting, she laughed and put her hand on top of his. “I’m kidding. Had to get one more in. Yeah. Someday I’d like to be a mom to some little babies. I don’t think now would be a good time.”

“Why not?”

Shay kept her gaze down and shrugged her shoulders.

“Shay?”

She waited a beat before she looked up.

“You got a boyfriend?” Gunnar swallowed hard as he waited for her answer.

He knew what she would say. He had to hear it from her.

Shay released a fake laugh. “I thought you weren’t interested in me.”

Gunnar reached across the table and held her hand.

“I need to go to the bathroom, and then I’m ready to go back to the salon.” She slipped her hand out of his and ran to a side hallway.

Gunnar had gotten close to her, but she’d retreated when he’d started to open a painful wound. The one good thing about her picking a lunch spot so far away was he could talk to her on the long car ride back about her choices.

Gunnar paid for lunch and then helped Shay on with her coat. He walked her to his truck, helping her inside first before he got behind the steering wheel.

“That Eboni, she sure is a lucky woman.” Shay shook her head.

“What do you mean?” Gunnar blasted the heat as much as he could before driving away.

“I prayed for a good man to come into my life, one who would love me and treat me right. You come in out of nowhere and she has you. You open doors for women, pull out chairs, pay for meals.” She looked his way. “You’re a nice guy.”

“Thank you, but Eboni and I are just friends.” Gunnar managed to cut his gaze away before he finished his statement.

“Liar.” Shay laughed. “It is so obvious you two are hitting it. I see the way you look at each other.”

Gunnar pulled out of the spot and got on to the interstate quick. What he thought would be a good thing as far as the time to get back to the salon now look like it may be an issue if Shay continued to ask probing questions.

“So you don’t have a man?” Gunnar asked.

“I have someone. I don’t know if I would call him a man.”

Gunnar felt that familiar ripple going up the back of his neck. When he glanced at Shay, for a split second, he suddenly saw his mother. She, too, had sported the same large sunglasses to hide black eyes and bruises. He gripped the steering wheel to channel his anger.

“You know when I first got with Queen Elizabeth, I didn’t treat her right.” Gunnar heard Shay gasp.

“Are you kidding? Everyone loves her. How could you not love the woman who took you in?” She gave him a playful slap on his arm.

“It wasn’t her fault. It was mine. Well, not exactly mine. I had some issues before she took me in. I had been abused.” He glanced at Shay, who quickly turned to look at the road ahead. He continued. “My biological mother didn’t want kids. She would beat me and Gideon all the time. By the time I had gotten to Queen, I thought all mothers were like that. I didn’t know any better because I hadn’t seen a good example of a kind mother. Then she showed me she loved me.” He wouldn’t go into the incident with the boys he thought had been his friends. “After that, I learned that not all mothers were like my biological one. If the man you’re with isn’t treating you right, you need to find one who will.”

Shay chuckled. “Easy for you to say. You got lucky in your situation. You got with Queen.”

“Yeah, but that was after years of being abused and bounced around. I was a child. I didn’t have a voice. You’re an adult. You have options. Hey.” He waited until she turned around and looked at him. “You have friends.”

A tear rolled down from under her sunglasses. She wiped it away while keeping her glasses covering her face. She did wince when she wiped under her eye.

“My mom had to be both mother and father to me. When it came time to talk to me about the birds and the bees, she didn’t hold back. She gave it to me straight. She said, ‘Gunnar, don’t you ever hit a woman. Women are all queens. Treat them that way.’ So I do. I hit punching bags and I hit opponents in the ring. That’s it.”

“So you don’t spank in the bedroom?” A smile cocked at the corner of her mouth.

“There you go again.”

Shay laughed. “For as much crap as I gave you when you first got there, I’m glad you filled in for Queen. I felt, I don’t know, safer with you around.”

“Shay, if you want to tell me anything, you can. I won’t say anything to my mother or Eboni.”

“It’s not them that I’m worried about.” She rubbed her forehead. “I’m fine. I’m a fighter. I’ll be fine.”

“Some things you shouldn’t have to fight for. You fight for family. You fight for life. You fight for love.”

“So what round are you in with Eboni?”

Gunnar wondered the same thing himself. “You’re not alone.”

“I’m glad it’s Friday. One more day of work and then I can relax for a couple of days.”

“Oh, speaking of which. Mom wants you all to come over to the house Sunday for a party. We’re watching my brother play in his first Super Bowl ever. You’re going to be there, right?”

“I don’t know. I have to check. I might have a thing at my place.” She turned her gaze away to look at the water they crossed over to get on the south side of the tunnel.

“Invitation is open.”

She nodded but didn’t turn back to him. Even when they got back to the salon and Gunnar helped her out of the truck, she kept her gaze away from him.

“Wow. That was a long lunch,” Tillman said as soon as they strolled through the back door.

“Sorry. The diva here insisted we go to some place in Hampton.” Gunnar removed his jacket.

In unison, the staff and some of the patrons in the salon all said, “Hampton?”

Then they looked at Shay.

“What? There’s a really good barbeque place over there.” She hung up her coat and called for her next client to come to her chair. “I can’t help it if I know what I like. Ain’t that right, Guns?” She blew him a kiss.

Now that he understood her bravado masked her pain, he played along with her. “Sure, Shay. Whatever you say.”

“Glad you enjoyed your lunch.” Eboni pushed past him to get to the back area.

“Maybe you should have brought something back for her.” Tisha pointed to Eboni.

No, hunger didn’t fuel Eboni’s attitude. Knowing a strain of jealousy slithered its way through her had Gunnar tickled. That meant she cared.

At the end of the day, Gunnar swept up the hair on the floors while everyone else cleaned off the counters and the coffee area.

“Darling, can we stop off at a burger joint so I can get a nice, big, juicy burger and a pile of greasy fries and a milkshake?” Queen Elizabeth came out of her office and slipped on her coat.

“Very funny, Mom. How about a salad, grilled chicken, and steamed veggies?” Gunnar dumped the hair and dirt into a nearby trash bin and put the cleaning supplies away.

“Eh, you’re no fun.” She waved her had at him.

A blaring car horn sounded from behind the salon.

“What’s that? Who’s laying on their horn like that?” Gunnar started toward the door when Shay stopped him.

“I got it. It’s for me. I got dropped off this morning, which is why I was late. My ride is here.”

Shay opened the door to the sound of someone screaming, “Get over here now!”

Gunnar started to go out the door when Shay put her hand to his chest.

“I’m fine. I’ll see you all tomorrow, okay?” She nodded and smiled.

“If you’re so fine, why are you still wearing shades at night?” he asked her.

“Because I’m a diva, remember?” She patted her curly Afro and sauntered to the car. She got inside the passenger side.

Gunnar wished he could have seen the action inside. With the tinted windows and the driver now blaring rap music, he couldn’t see or hear anything. The car made a U-turn in the parking lot and sped off into the street.

“See you all tomorrow.” Monica waddled past Gunnar to her car.

“Did Queen tell you about the Super Bowl party at her house?” he called after her.

“Yeah. I’ll be there. I’m bringing my nacho dip.” Monica waved as she continued on her trek to her car.

Gunnar stepped back inside. After Tillman and Tisha left, he stood there with two women who had his heart, although one looked like she wanted to crush his in her hand.

“Joining us for dinner?” Elizabeth asked Eboni.

“No. I’m going home.” Eboni put on her coat and grabbed her purse.

“Something wrong?” Gunnar asked.

“Nope. I realized I haven’t been home a lot with my own family this week and I’d like to do that.” She started to head out the door when Gunnar held her arm.

“Stop. Can we talk?”

“No, take Queen home. I’ll see you tomorrow.”